[ SECRET POST #362 ]

[shahni.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #362 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

- Name that fandom, first comment! Fandomsecrets turns a year old on the third!

Secrets Left to Post: 5 pages, 100 secrets from Secret Submission Post #052.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, [1] not!secrets, 0 not!fandom.
Next Secret Post: Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
Current Secret Submission Post: Here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

22

[googlebrat.livejournal.com]

I hope you're reading this, hon, because I think you need to hear it.

This was not your fault. It doesn't matter if she asked you to give her a lift and you refused. Your sister had options. She could have gone that night and drank soft drinks. She could have got a taxi. She could even have chosen not to go.

It doesn't matter if you were busy because you were watching TV, because you were having mind-blowing sex, or because you were performing life-saving surgery on a small child. You were busy, and it then became your sister's responsibility to do something other than drink and drive.

It's normal to feel responsible. Believe me on this. It's normal to rewrite the past - to say "if I had done X, she would have done y". But that doesn't make it your fault for not doing X, I promise you it doesn't.

I have a kid sister myself. She's adorable. Nineteen. Doesn't drive yet. If she one day learns to drive, and I say I can't give her a lift - for whatever reason - and she drinks and drives? She will be smacked. And then I will tell mum. And she'd be damn lucky if her car keys weren't confiscated. Because she made that choice, not me, and it was a bad choice.

Your sister messed up. And she got unlucky too. It happens. It's hard and it happens. Every day people play the odds - I can afford to go a little over the speed limit because I'm late for work so it's excusable, I can afford to drink-drive because I can't get a lift so it's not my fault. And a lot of them get away with it. A few don't. It's horrible, it's tragic, but it's not your fault.

It sounds as though this is something you would do well to talk about, but I understand if you feel as though you can't with family. Get help. Call a helpline if you have no other options. Get it off your chest to someone, talk it out.

But believe me. This was not your fault.

Re: 22

[(Anonymous)]

Second that.

My mother is a recovering alcoholic and it took me a long time to learn, as her adult child, that what she did, her OWN decisions, were not my responsibility. I'm quite certain that you giving her a ride was not her only option. It NEVER EVER is. And blaming youself is only a path to undeserved self-hate. Do not listen to anyone who will try to tell you it is your fault. If she expected someone to drop everything for her because she was too drunk to drive, that is not that "someone"'s problem. Please, God, by all means, mourn. But don't beat yourself up over a wrong decision that someone else made.

I turned my own mother down for rides home from the bar before. For various reasons. And I worried. But now I know that that was okay. If she really wanted to be sure she'd have a lift, she would have made arrangements in advance.

God bless you.

Re: 22

[dissociate.livejournal.com]

IMHO this is very thoughtfully written and I sincerely hope the OP comes to understand that.

Re: 22

[googlebrat.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, my cousin was one of those who played the odds and lost at speeding. Nothing extrodinary, nothing millions of people don't do every day. Just a silly kid trying to get to work faster than he should and hitting black ice.

I don't forget people playing the blame game. It always happens after such things. It's a tragedy - but being a tragedy doesn't make it anyone else's fault. That can be the really hard part to accept.